A former Hawthorne resident says he was arrested for no reason in the United Arab Emirates, blindfolded, beaten, strapped to an electric chair and told that his wife would be raped if he didn’t confess to vague charges of terrorism.

Now, Naji Hamdan and his brother, Hawthorne resident Hossem Hemden, want answers from the United States government, which they allege played a role in the 13-month ordeal.

“My life was turned upside down in a split second,” Hamdan said in a phone interview Wednesday from his native Lebanon, where he has been living since his release in October 2009. “I just want to know why this happened to me.”

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Wednesday in federal court seeking public records related to Hamdan’s arrest, and the surveillance he and his brother say they were subjected to in the years following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request in January, but was ignored by the government or told there were no records, attorneys said.

The civil rights group alleges the government arranged for Hamdan’s arrest by using a foreign dictatorship to do its dirty work, said Jennie Pasquarella, an ACLU staff attorney.

A spokeswoman from the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, the primary agency involved in the alleged surveillance and conspiracy with the UAE, said the FBI does not generally divulge details of ongoing investigations.

Though the agency routinely works with foreign counterparts, “the FBI does not ask foreign nations to detain U.S. citizens on our behalf in order to circumvent their rights,” said Laura Eimiller, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Los Angeles.

When the agents conduct interviews or surveillance, they adhere to the Constitution, U.S. laws, attorney general guidelines and FBI policies, she said.

Hamdan, 44, moved to the Los Angeles area in the early 1980s, studied at Northrop University, and eventually settled in Hawthorne, where he opened an auto-parts store. He was a founding member of the Islamic Center of Hawthorne, and often volunteered at the mosque.

FBI agents, he said, came to his home and business at least six times after security measures were stepped up in the wake of the terrorist attacks. They asked about his political beliefs, religion and daily activities, said Hamdan, a married father of three young children.

Air travel also became difficult. He says security officials frequently stopped and questioned him, often for hours.

In August 2006, Hamdan moved his family to the UAE, where he opened another auto-parts business. It was then, he says, that U.S. interest intensified.

During a visit back to the United States in 2007, Hamdan said he was questioned for over four hours at Los Angeles International Airport. He said an entourage of FBI agents followed him during the weeklong visit.

On his way back to the UAE, he was arrested at the airport during a stop in Lebanon, but was soon released, he said. Two FBI agents then visited his brother in Hawthorne, asking him about the arrest in Lebanon.

A month later, in August 2008, Hamdan was arrested by UAE security forces, and without explanation, he says he was blindfolded, forced into a vehicle, and taken to a secret location. Three months later he was transferred to an official prison in Abu Dhabi.

“I wasn’t able to contact my family or anybody,” he said Wednesday. “They didn’t know where I was, and neither did I. The situation was terrible.”

While being tortured, he said he was asked about his family life and other details that only U.S. officials were likely to know, he said. At one point, he said, a man who spoke perfect English was present in the room.

“There is no doubt in my mind that that person was an American agent attending the torture session,” he said. “I could see black shoes and gray pants, which was different from everyone else in the room.”

The ACLU filed a lawsuit in November 2008 demanding his release, or that charges be filed and made public. He was eventually charged with three counts of terrorism and found guilty at trial in October 2009.

The justice system in the UAE is very different than in America, he said. He was assigned a government attorney, and wasn’t allowed to present evidence or challenge the verdict. The judge in the case, however, sentenced him to time served, or 13 months.

Hamdan was then deported to Lebanon, where he remains with his family, he said.

The ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request with several intelligence agencies, including the FBI and CIA, requesting all correspondence related to Hamdan’s case. Pasquarella said the ACLU received confirmation of the request, but after six months still has not received any documents.

“The American public deserves to know about our government’s practice of using other foreign governments … as a proxy to detain and interrogate people outside the rule of law,” she said.

A 2010 Human Rights Council report found several hundred detainees were held in Pakistan on behalf of the United States as part of a secret detention program. At least 35 others have been arrested and held in proxy arrests for the U.S. government in the Middle East and elsewhere, according to the council’s February report.

Pasquarella said it is imperative that these programs be made public, both for the public’s right to know and for Hamdan’s own personal safety. He was recently made aware that the United States is in the process of restricting his ability to do business.

Hamdan said he would eventually like to return to Hawthorne, where he lived for nearly two decades.

“I’m trying to recover from all of this mentally,” he said. “I want to spend time with my family, and find out what happened.”

Melissa Evans is the city editor of the Long Beach Press-Telegram. Prior to joining the Long Beach paper in 2011, she was a reporter covering health care, religion, city government and social issues for newspapers in the Los Angeles area, the Bay Area and the East Coast. She has a master's degree in theology from Loyola Marymount University, a bachelor's degree in journalism from San Diego State, and has completed several fellowships in journalism. She has lived in the Long Beach area since 2007.